Desperate Times
by Center of the Galaxy
Summary: Dean's been missing for two days and Sam is running low on hope and options. With Castiel MIA, Sam has no choice but to turn to Benny for help. Will they be able to work together to find Dean? *one-shot, minor hurt!Sam, minor BigBrother!Dean, slightly awesome!Benny and Castiel, season 8 spoilers!*


_**Author's Note: **__Dear season 8, please stop breaking my heart. Yes, I understand that the boys fighting will have to end, but if I have to watch one more episode with Dean ignoring Sam and Sam snapping at Dean, I will cry. Anyways, this story came about as a result of how much I want the boys to get back together, but also how much I wish Benny and Sam would interact. I actually love Benny. I think he's a great character! I wish he and Sam could share more scenes together. Anyways, let's set this after "Hunteri Heroici." This is my first time writing as Benny so forgive me if he seems out of character! Spoilers for season 8 are in here too so fair warning! Please enjoy!_

* * *

"_If you thought I'd leave, then you were wrong_

'_Cause I won't stop holding on_

_This is an emergency_

_So, are you listening?" _

—_Paramore, "Emergency"_

* * *

Sam is starting to get desperate.

It's been two days since Dean vanished, seemingly disappearing into the night. Two days since the last time they talked, both hurling angry words at each other. Two days since he got so frustrated with his brother that he told him to just leave him alone and not come back.

Seems like Dean took him at his word.

But, Sam still clings to hope. For one thing, why would Dean leave behind his duffel? And more importantly, if he had really wanted to get away from Sam, why would he leave the Impala? That car was his life—his baby. If he were really pissed at Sam, then he would've taken the car to get far away from him; but, he didn't. That part made no sense at all and it is with this hope that he reaches out to Castiel. He doesn't know if the angel will be able to track Dean, but he figures it doesn't hurt to cover all his bases. And frankly, being so alone is reminding him of how he felt after his older brother disappeared after the battle with Dick Roman—how after combing the warehouse for hours, he got into the Impala and just drove because he had no one else to turn to. Bobby, Ellen, Jo, and Ash—all their friends were dead. He hadn't had any leads or anyone to turn to. He had driven, hit a dog—well, the rest was history.

"Castiel?" He stares upward at the stormy sky and wills for it to reveal some magical sign—some sort of explanation. "Listen, I need your help. Dean's missing and I don't have any leads." He pauses and waits. "Please, Castiel." He whispers, voice breaking because if Castiel doesn't show up, he will be alone again with no one to turn to for help.

He can't do that again.

After waiting for a solid ten minutes, Sam pushes down the despair clawing at the edges of his sanity and begins to pack his stuff. Gently, he packs Dean's stuff and leaves a note behind, just in case his older brother shows up, though he doubts he will. If Dean had left voluntarily, he would've been back by now, for the car if not anything else.

He does have one last lead left and though it's going to cost him some precious time to track him down, it's a sacrifice he has to make.

Sam begins to drive.

* * *

"Well, this is a surprise."

"Benny." Sam greets coolly as the vampire turns around in the alleyway.

"Here to kill me, are you?" He asks, a cocky grin tugging on his lips. His posture is relaxed, like he doesn't think Sam will attack him or that he doesn't believe that Sam can overpower him. Regardless, it irritates the youngest Winchester, but he lets it go. He's on a mission.

He needs to find Dean.

"Have you seen my brother?" At this question, Benny's head tilts to the side in confusion, the smile fading from his lips.

"What?" He asks, almost as if he needs to hear it again because he didn't quite hear it the first time.

"Dean. He's missing." Sam spits out the words because they leave an awful bitter taste on his mouth. His brother is missing—again—and Sam won't let him go. He can't be alone without him and yes, they had been fighting, but if Dean would just come back, Sam would fix their relationship!

"Since when?" Benny questions urgently, not seeming to care about how own safety anymore.

"He left our room two days ago. He never came back."

"And you sure he was—?"

"He left the Impala and his stuff behind." Benny nods his head and then sighs.

"I haven't seen him. It's been a good week since we've talked." Sam suppresses the urge to scream up at the sky about how he can't handle anymore trauma. He's lost Dean too many times and if he loses him once more, he isn't sure he'll make it to see tomorrow. Without saying anything further to Benny—if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all or so he was taught in school—he turns and heads back to the car, only for the vampire to call out behind him. "Sam! Wait."

Sam does so, though he doesn't know why.

"What?" He grinds out, unsure what he should do next.

"I'll help you look."

"No." It's his gut reaction, because he's made the mistake of accepting help from something supernatural and look where that got them. No, he'll avoid repeating his past mistakes, thank you very much. Benny is unfazed though and that stupid smirk is back on his face.

"Look, I know you and I don't get along," Benny drawls, seemingly at ease with not a care in the world. "But Dean helped me out a lot in Purgatory. I owe him."

"I don't need—" Sam begins to lie.

"Who else are you going to go to? The angel? Because I think you would've tried him before you found me." He's so smug and self-assured and it reminds Sam so much of Dean and it hurts. He needs to find his brother. He needs to bring him back in one piece.

"You know Cas?" He mumbles, stalling while his mind debates what to do.

"Yeah," Benny murmurs, eyes filling with an emotion that Sam can't quite distinguish—fear mixed with grief? "In Purgatory, the three of us had each other's backs."

Should he do this? Should he accept help from this vampire? What if this came back to ruin him in the end? But . . . if he didn't accept this help, what was he going to do? He had no leads and no one else to turn to for help. Garth was busy guarding the Trans and it wasn't like Dean would've gone to see them all of the sudden. With Benny, the two of them could cover things faster and get Dean back quickly.

"Fine." Sam spats. "But you get out of line and I'll—"

"Relax," Benny soothes, cocky expression back in place, but Sam can see some sincere emotions lurking in his eyes. "We'll find him and I won't do anything that will make you want to kill me more than you want to do now." He chuckles, like he's said the funniest thing ever and Sam just gapes slightly at just how calm he is. How had he and Dean ever gotten close to this guy?

"Just get in the car."

"Yeah, yeah." Benny replies with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Sam shakes his head—it's going to be one hell of a drive.

* * *

Benny suggests they head back to Dean's last location in the hopes that he can pick up a trail and Sam agrees because even though he's searched the area high and low for his brother, he doesn't have any better options or suggestions.

"So . . ." Benny begins, breaking the silence in the car as Sam floors it back to the old motel room. "We never really got a chance to talk the last time we met." Yeah, the last time they met, Dean had rushed off to go help Benny take down a vampire nest and Sam, had known what Benny was and had watched with wide eyes as Dean told him to stand down. His brother—Mr. "If it's supernatural, we kill it"—had told him to spare a vampire's life.

"What's there to say?" Sam questions. "You're a vampire and I'm a hunter. We shouldn't be working together at all."

"You know, Sam," Benny begins, a smile still on his lips. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say that you didn't like me."

"Whatever gave you that idea?" Sam asks dryly. Then, he freezes. Did he really just joke with a vampire? God, what's wrong with him? Benny is just a means to an end and that's it. He's not going to be a friend or anything remote to that because it'll be a disaster like Ruby.

"Dean was like that at first," Benny replies. "Wanted to kill me, you know?"

"What changed his mind?" Sam has to know because it's so unlike his brother to put his life and reputation on the line for anyone besides close friends, let alone something supernatural. And yes, Sam understands that Purgatory wasn't like Hell or here—what little he had gotten Dean to confide in him about hadn't painted a pretty picture—but it's still so weird. His brother used to view anything having to do with the supernatural in black and white. If you were human, you lived. If you were some sort of creature, you died. Hell, even Amy had been killed despite that she had existed under the radar much like Benny was now. A year ago, would Dean have killed Benny? Or if he had come across Amy today, would he have let her go?

"Honestly?" Benny shrugs. "I'm not sure."

It was more of an answer than Dean had ever given him.

* * *

"What was Purgatory like?" They're close to the motel, but Sam can't stand the silence any longer. No, he doesn't trust Benny but while they're being forced to work together, he might as well make the best of it.

"Dean never told you?" Benny keeps his eyes ahead and never even shifts his head to Sam.

"No." The youngest Winchester grips the steering wheel tighter. It was like Hell all over again—Dean had been reluctant to tell him what he had endured at first back then as well. Still, if he was going to help Dean, he had to have some understand of what had transpired down there.

"It was running every day, trying not to be killed," The vampire tells him softly. "It was feeling like there would never be any end and that there was no chance of surviving another day." Then, the dark expression in his eyes lightens and he smiles softly. "Your brother gave me hope though."

"Really?" Though Sam doesn't doubt it, not even for a second. It's always been Dean who has been optimistic, as weird as that sounds. When Sam had been plagued by his visions and unsure of his destiny, Dean had been the one to assure him that everything would be okay. And even when it had looked like the world was about to go to Hell—literally—Dean had somehow made him believe that they could make it.

And they had—together.

"He was determined to find Cas," Benny informs him. "And once we had Cas, he was figuring out a plan to get us all out."

"That sounds like my brother." Sam remarks, a small grin on his lips as he recalled other past schemes that his brother had cooked up—some of them serious, some of them ridiculous, but all had been important in some way.

A pause passes as they sit in semi-comfortable silence, a huge shift from the first couple of hours of driving.

"He talked about you a lot."

"Me?" Sam echoes, surprise coloring his tone.

"Yeah," Benny confirms. "He and Castiel, before they went to bed, would talk about how you were doing, how they hoped that you were holding your own and staying one step ahead of whatever was out there. They kept mentioning someone named Bobby?" Sam glances away, the loss of their surrogate father still painful. "They wanted to get back to you. Dean said you usually did stupid things whenever you were alone."

Sam chuckles, a bit out of sadness and a bit out of affection. Yeah, he did usually do stupid stuff whenever he was alone. Case in point, Ruby. Still, it made him happy to know that he had been in his brother's thoughts because he had certainly been in Sam's. Not a day went by where he didn't think of Dean—even when he had been with Amelia, he still thought about his "dead" brother. He had honestly thought Dean had died because with no leads and no friends to lend a hand, Sam had been alone in the world and had no way of knowing where his brother was, much less knowing how to pull him out.

"He's right." Benny eyes him oddly, like he's finally realized something that had been bothering him for a very long time.

"Sam—"

"We're here."

* * *

"Anything?"

"Give me a second." He stands behind Benny, while the vampire the area leading away from the motel room.

"Well?" Sam asks impatiently because Dean has been gone two days too long and he needs him back, even if Dean is only going to slam the motel room door closed again and never speak to him again. He has to fix things between them, or at least try.

"Okay," Benny stands from the ground and begins to walk. "He went this way." Sam follows and is about to ask how Benny knows when he remembers—once a vampire gets your scent, they never forget it, a fact which Sam is eternally grateful for now. It's like having his own person greyhound, but with much better range. They continue down, following the invisible trail that only Benny can make out until they arrive at a small creek and Benny suddenly stops.

"What?" Sam questions urgently.

"It's faint here." Benny answers. "Like someone tried to cloak him but didn't do too good a job."

"Like an amateur hunter?" Sam ventures, though he can't imagine Dean getting taken by one, unless his older brother had been drugged or otherwise compromised—thoughts that make fury boil up in Sam's veins.

"No," Benny murmurs, though confusion reigns on his face. "It's not another human. "It's an angel." Sam gapes at this new revelation. An angel took his brother? Why would they have done that? Or maybe Castiel did—?"

"Well, well," A crisp voice calls out, as there is a flutter of wings. "You figured it out. Points for you." Sam stiffens and reaches for his gun and he can feel Benny brace for attack beside him as well. A woman with curly blonde hair and dressed in a white button down top and a black skirt grins at them.

"Who are you—?"

"We don't really have time for questions, do we?" She retorts, smiling stiffly. "Just know you passed the test."

"Test?" Benny echoes. "What test?"

"Where is my brother?" Sam growls.

"Rest assured, Dean is safe," She states calmly. "He will be returned in a bit."

"Give him back now." Benny snarls, a knife coming out of his pocket. He stands next to Sam, ready to fight if needed. Funny, Sam hadn't expected him to do such a thing. Risk a fight with an angel? That wasn't something he would've ever expected any supernatural creature to do. The angel's plastic smile stays in place and she waves her hand.

"We will," She replies as she summons demons and Sam's eyes widen in confusion. Since when did heaven summon demons? What the hell was going on here? "See you soon, Sam Winchester."

And with that, she's gone and the dozen or so demons circle them.

"Not liking these odds," Benny remarks with a smirk tugging on his lips, though it does not reach his eyes. "Plan?" Sam contains his surprise over how he's being asked for orders from a vampire and instead focuses on the problem now.

"Stay alive." Sam replies simply, pulling out Ruby's knife.

"Just what I was thinking." Benny chuckles.

With that, they charge.

* * *

Benny is a different fighter than Dean. He moves with a grace that could only be acquired after fighting for years and there is a fluidity to his moves that astounds the youngest Winchester. Even with the odds clearly out of their favor, they soon take down the demons until all that remains is them with a pile of corpses—not exactly how Sam wanted this to go down, but they hadn't had time to exorcise everyone and the main goal had been staying alive.

A sharp pain flares up and suppressing a whimper of pain, Sam clamps down on his injured side. Blood flows between his fingers and he glares at the body of a middle-aged man that had gotten to him with a knife in the middle of the fight. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, the full extent of the injury was beginning to take its toll. Benny turns towards him, worry and something else mixed in his eyes. Hunger, perhaps?

"Just go." Sam mumbles.

"What?" Benny echoes, confused.

"This," Sam manages to gesture to his bloody side. "Isn't good for you, right? You're struggling?" Benny nods his head, though shame colors his expression. He must not like to admit weakness, Sam muses, much like Dean. Seemed like his brother and Benny had a lot in common.

"I can't just leave you," Benny protests, crossing the distance to where Sam is now slowly, but surely sinking to the ground. "Dean would have my hide." He glances at the blood, but forces his gaze to remain focused on Sam.

"Benny—"

"Relax, Sam," He orders gently, a lopsided grin once more on his face. Sam wonders just how Benny can be so calm all the time? Was it something he acquired from being alive all these years? Or was it just his personality? "Let's get you up." He hoists Sam up and guides him back to the motel room, but as soon as the room comes into view, the door is thrown open and Dean comes storming out.

"Sam, where the hell have you—?" He takes in the situation and without any further comment, takes Sam from Benny. Immediately, the vampire steps back and maintains his distance. "Benny?"

"Demons," Benny answers in a clipped tone, his control clearly struggling. "I have to go before I do something I regret." Dean nods. "Take care of your brother." And with that, he vanishes.

"Sammy? You with me?"

"Yeah." Sam answers weakly, the blood loss beginning to take its toll.

"Jesus, Sam, what happened?"

"You vanished," The youngest Winchester mumbles. "Cas was gone and I had to find some help." Dean places him on the bed with a gentleness that Sam hasn't seen him exhibit since before he went to Purgatory.

"I vanished?" Dean asks, wiping up some of the blood to get a better look at the injury. "Dude, I've been here the whole time."

"No," Sam protests weakly. "You were gone. Two days, Dean." His brother opens his mouth to speak but glances at the TV where the news clearly displays the date. Slight horror fills Dean's expression but then it's quickly gone, replaced by a façade of calm.

"Okay, just hold on," His older brother soothes, cleaning the wound out with alcohol, which makes Sam moan in pain. "Easy, it's over, you're okay."

"How bad?" He manages to ask, teeth clenched in pain.

"It's deep," The eldest Winchester confesses, a tinge of fear in his tone. "I don't think I can sew it up—" There's a flutter of wings and Sam is about to warn his brother when he sees who exactly the angel is. "Castiel? Where the hell have you been?"

"I do not recall," Castiel mumbles, clearly disquieted by this. "Sam, you are injured."

"No shit, Sherlock." Dean mumbles under his breath, but Castiel doesn't acknowledge his remark and instead reaches forward until his hand is hovering above Sam's injury.

"Hold on." Castiel informs Sam and then a bright light glows above the injury. Sam feels a warmth on his side and then, the light is gone as is the pain. Dean helps him sit up and Sam grins his thanks to the angel.

"Okay," Dean begins, arms folded across his chest. "You want to tell me what happened?"

* * *

"Angels?" Castiel repeats, expression downcast and Sam wishes he had better news. "You are positive?"

"Yeah." Sam replies and then adds softly, "I'm sorry."

"I . . ." Castiel's voice wavers and then without another word, he's gone. Dean sighs and runs a hand through his hair.

"You really don't remember anything?" Sam questions his older brother who simply shakes his head. "The angel said they were testing me."

"But for what exactly?" Dean adds and Sam nods his head in agreement. The two sit for a moment in silence before the youngest Winchester regains his nerve. Staring his brother straight in the eyes, he wills the words that have been plaguing him to come out.

"I'm sorry."

"Sam—" He holds up a hand for silence, which Dean obliges.

"No, I mean it, Dean," He says wholeheartedly. "I did give up the life without looking for you, but man, you have to understand, I thought you were dead." Dean glances away, dark memories of his own playing because he had lost Sam too. "I had no clues and no one to turn to and I'm sorry that I stopped looking because I know that you would've never given up—"

"Sammy—"

"And I know you're pissed at me and I get it—"

"Sam!" Dean barks and Sam falls silent. "Look, I understand," He says softly, like he's been thinking about this for a long time too. "And I'm not mad at you anymore. I just . . . I don't know, it's just been hard to adjust." Sam nods his head in acknowledgement. "I'm not mad, okay? Just give me some time."

"Okay, Dean."

"Good."

And for the first time since Dean's been back, Sam feels like he can finally breathe.

* * *

"He did it." Naomi glances up at the young angel who had been sent to administer the test. "He worked with that monster."

"I see," The older and more powerful angel mutters. "Thank you, Grace. You have performed admirably. You are dismissed." Grace grins before vanishing. With a wave of her hand, Castiel soon stands before here, appearing utterly confused. Naomi smirks memory loss would do that to you.

"What are you—?"

"Are you ready to atone for your numerous sins?" Castiel stiffens before nodding. "Good, your mission is simple." She pauses and rises from her seat, crossing the distance between her and the once fallen angel. "Kill Sam Winchester." Castiel's eyes widen in shock.

"What? No."

"No?" Naomi echoes.

"No," He repeats firmly. "Sam is my friend." She's touched at this angel's clear display of affection for the human, but she has a job that must be fulfilled.

"You will kill him," She orders, voice authoritative. "He should've died years ago. We overlooked it then, but we will not do so now. Keeping Sam Winchester alive will only lead to calamites on the Earth, of this we are sure of."

"Sam Winchester has sacrificed himself many times over to save the Earth!" Castiel retorts, voice strong and sure. "I will not harm him."

"You don't have a choice. You will kill Sam Winchester." With another wave of her hand, Castiel is gone and Naomi sighs as she leans against her desk. What was it about the Winchester boys? Why did they have such a profound effect on people? Numerous angels had died for their cause and they had even bargained with Death himself! Still, she had her orders.

Sam Winchester had to die.

That was that.

* * *

_**Author's Note: **__So, this is a completed one-shot, but the last bit at the end kept nagging me until it forced me to put it in. So, a sequel will be coming eventually. It'll be it's own story and Dean and Castiel will play a bigger role in it. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this! Writing about season 8 gives me hope that the boys will stop fighting. So, did you like it? Please review if you have a moment! _


End file.
